...What he said.

I just read my mates (and manager) blog, and it is kind of topical for me. It's about weight loss and racing weight.

I'm not experienced enough to know what my race weight is, but each time I have been lighter, I've done better.

There is probably more to do with experience gain than weight loss in there, though.

Take me now, I've put on 2kg in the last 2 months, but my belt has gone down another notch, and my made to measure suits that I had done last summer when I felt posh, don't fit me any more. My skins arms are getting slack and the legs are getting tight, too.

I raced at 76KG last year, and I'm 80kg now, but have veins popping out where they really shouldn't be. I'm riding loads faster than last year, already, and feel great on the bike.

With all the long hours on the weekend that I do, I think I will naturally lose some weight, and muscle bulk. But after reading Rob's post, we'll just weight and see. (see what I did there?)

If I have good food, and don't eat late, that'll do for me...

...Anyway, this weekend.

We had mutiny at HMS WC2C, so I had to change my plans and do an out an return on Sunday, after a different out and return on Saturday.

My mate, Punchy, had asked why the route didn't stop at "The Celtic Ring" in the bay. I made something up, but the truth was that I didn't even know it was there. Shame on me. So I went to have a look, by riding there, and doing my efforts on the way home on the steep side of Caerphilly Mountain.

I never, ever, thought I would hear myself say that Caerphilly Mountain wasn't big enough, but I ran out of road, and had to start right down in Caerphilly town to get 10mins out of my effort.

I digress...

...What follows, after Saturday's re-recconoitre is this: The route will now finish at "The Celtic Ring". It's easier to ride to, without playing dodgems with civilians hell bent on blockading you. It's also easier to find, and is within 10 feet of the water. I think it is also a more photogenic area, so making me look good should be less of a hardship when I'm all haggered and smelly after my ride.

Thanks, Punchy.

So back to the Mutiny. I ended up riding from Llandovery on Sunday morning, out to Strata Florida and back, but this time I found a couple of natty bits of single track and the last piece in the puzzle: A water point. I had been struggling to find one in this area up to this point, but that's settled now.

Riding outbound was awful. I was getting blown to a virtual standstill every minute or so, and maxxing my legs out to keep moving. I though about re-routing to stay out of the wind, but Chris's voice rattled in my head,"Supertough, you know what you need to do."

I had a little whimper, swore at "him", and kept going.

On the way back, I tried a bit of singletrack that Ian Barrington had shown me on a map, that he uses often, and is freely and legally accessible with opening gaits at either end. It was nice, then sketchy, then rocky, then wet, rocky and sketchy!

It's part of the route now, and it adds nothing to the distance.

Also, near Llanwrtyd Wells I found another little bit of rocky, rooty and muddy Bridleway that's been chewed up by horses and then crosses a REALLY rickety bridge. After the bridge of doom it goes up a rocky and wet pseudo riverbed, and past our water point.

The chicken wire is all that's holding this thing together

A quick ride back to the car and the weekend was done!

Sign says, "Caution, One at a time." They ain't joking!


I'm sure that there will be a few small tweaks undertaken on the route in the next few weeks, but small is all they will be.

The totals are in!

I've just done all the maths for the missing bits of the route distance and ascent.

Obviously this is open to a bit of error. I have counted on approximately 5% error on the short side, due to the way memorymap shortcuts the route when plotting it's waypoints and smoothing. So, I have added 5% to the recorded length to make up for the inaccuracies of the track recording intervals.

The ascent is open to errors too, but I believe that it is within 500m. I have had such problems with MemoryMap...

So

Here it is.

Distance 345.5Km or 214.5 miles

Ascent 8356m or 27427 feet

Crikey!!

Bing it on!

Who's going to have a go after me?

It's just a jump to the left!...

...And then a step to the right!

I'll tell you about that later though.

Today was the first in a series of dry runs: Straight line runs from one end of the WC2C running linearly for 5 or 6 hrs at a time. Each week I'll pick up where I finished, and carry on.

We got up at daft o'clock again and drove from the Cardiff area to Caernarfon. Jo acted as my taxi and then went and did her thing at Coed-y-Brenin.

I started at, well, the start by Caernarfon Castle and headed south. It's a lovely place to start, poised betwixt castle walls and the sea, with it's swing bridge and noisy seagulls.



This was only a practice, but I was nervous!

That's my nervous face

I'm tucking myself in in this photo, it's not some strange soldiers' pose, promise.

It was also going to be an opportunity to remap the the early stages and their ascent. I'd had problems with my Memory Map software not picking the satmap ascent, or being able to calculate it's own. I'd guessed at 300m.

Jo took a few photos, while I stood and froze. I was itching to get going.

She's always looking down on me

And they're off!

Off I went, and made good ground following the Sustrans Route 8 to Porthmadoc, where I came across a farmer with his two boys walking down a lane and going in the same direction as me.

I so dislike bells on bikes. They are supremely impersonal things that "announce" your presence to all, with out so much as a "by your leave?" I'd rather coast slowly up to somebody, at about walking pace and say, "hello" and ask if they could let me through.

This family guy was so engrossed with his kids that he didn't hear me saying "hello" as I came up behind him (slowly), repeating myself a few times.

He did hear me the last time as I sidled up to him.

He jumped out of his skin, and did "The Time-Warp" dance! He jumped up and to the left, arms waving all over the place, as he looked to see his kids were safe. He landed square on both feet with his hands dropping onto his hips for some reason. Then he thrust his right foot to the right, and in front of his closest child in a protective manoeuver (hands on hips).

It was the best Time Warp I had ever seen. All that was missing were the stockings, suspenders and camp make-up.

That reminds me, I need to call Rich.

I laughed myself silly, whilst apologising profusely and promising to get a bell. As a parting gesture I commented on his superb disco moves, to which he laughed again.

It's a good job he saw the funny side, he was twice my size.

Anyway. I finished the part of the route that I didn't have ascent data for. Remember that I thought it would be about 300m?

1750m!

I thought I was getting sweaty.

There is something nice about pulling off of Route 8 to do the single track finishes for "The Beast", including the skull and crossbones section, pop pickers. It's a mountain bike challenge,and it needs it's fun bits, after all!

Carrying on by following "The Dragons Back" until you cross the river back onto Route 8, just fills the time and makes sure that you can actually ride a bike on the rough stuff.

The day ended between Dolgellau and Machynlleth with 3600m of ascent, in under 100km!

We've only just started the hills at this point.

I suppose we are a designing a "Lasting Challenge".

I think we've done it, too.

More Snow

North Wales was put on hold today because my mate, who lives up there, said that all the Bridleways and trails were still snowed in.

So instead, I stayed south, and revisited some of the Taff Trail and to avoid the North Wales snow...


Oops!

I did 120km in that, and boy did my feet feel it, afterwards!

Proper hot aches followed this photo. Aaargh!

I felt superb all the way through, because I'm aiming to be supertough! The coaching is making big differences already, I'm sure.

My kit worked a treat, especially my Azure, which I've developed a real love for in the past 5 or 6 weeks.

A WC2C free weekend!

All I did this weekend was train, and rest. I also now realise how good Coach Chris is at reading people, their athletic abilities and mental profile.

It's spooky, if you ask me, but he has revolutionised my training and recovery. But, you'll have to find that out for yourself. :ob

Saturday, and we got up at late o'clock, which was nice. The dogs normally wake us up about 5am by stomping on my tender bits or "singing" at us. Alternatively, one dog manages to weavel itself onto the bed without being noticed, and you wake up looking at it's chocolate starfish. Either that, or you feel the draught of a little love puff, from the same place. It's never the best way to wake up, but it works!

Today, though, they slept all the way through.

After multiple breakfasts, and a chilled out morning, we got ready to ride our bikes. The afternoon was spent on local trails and we rode to, around and about, and home from Cwmcarn. It was kind of cold, but it was a good day.

5hrs later, I was washing our bikes in the dark.

Food, telly, fruit, more recovery drink and I was in bed before 10pm.

This morning was more normal. We were up really early; too early for the dogs, who stayed in bed whilst we got ready.

We arrived at Afan Argoed and had finished our rides by 2pm.

It was Baltic, and my Camelbak froze. In addition to this, I had ridden a bit too hard yesterday and subsequently, my legs were killing me. It took 3hrs for my legs to feel like they had any life in them.

The ride was excellent though. (Supertough, remember.)

Part of the day followed the whole of the recently marked "W2" trail, from "The Wall" end. I have to say that I really enjoyed this route, because it mixes up some of the best singletrack around and jiggles the way you would normally do it. It's like a figure of 8 route that splices the "The Wall" and "Whytes Level" together and it's a good day out on it's own, I think. The best bit is that you can start it from Glyncorrwg or Afan, and still cover the same ground.

I've never been down "The Wall" descents so quickly (on any of my bikes), so I must really have the MK111 well dialed in now. It's also quite surprising how hard you can push Crossmark tyres.

It snowed for a little while.

Blimey it was cold.

A new sign seems to have appeared at the top of the Whytes climb. It's new to me anyway, because I've never noticed it before. It's the answer to the question that goes through most peoples' minds on the way up the relentless (but fun) climb...

Hmm? I'm not sure about the spelling

Next week is easy. Saturday is a short day, but Sunday will be the first in a series of one day rides where I join up all of the stages of the WC2C, so that I know it inside out.

One "Rule of engagement" for the WC2C challenge that we've decided on is that it's going to be a litter free ride. I (and hopefully any subsequent riders) will have to carry everything they consume into the ride and out of the other end. So any used wrappers etc will have to be carried to the end and accounted for. It's a small statement, but it's quite important to myself and most of my friends.

This excludes water, of course! 20KG of water is, well, 20kg. I don't know about you, but that would kill me off!

I have had some great ideas for rules provided by my close friends, but I can't print any!!

Children. :)

See you next week.